Lando Norris declared ‘I hate this question so much’ after being asked about his chances of gaining points on championship rival Max Verstappen in the Brazilian Grand Prix sprint.
The Brit dominated the sprint shootout session from the get-go, posting times that team-mate Oscar Piastri couldn’t get near. Following a blistering provisional lap in SQ3, the sprint pole looked a certainty.
However, Piastri had other ideas and after trailing his colleague for the majority of the session, the Australian produced a rapid final lap to snatch the sprint shootout pole.
While Norris was frustrated to miss out on the P1 grid slot, the Brit can take some positives from the fact that title rival Verstappen will start down in P4. He wasn’t delighted to be answering more questions about that fight, though.
“I don’t care,” he snapped back. “I hate this question so much. I don’t care about where he qualifies. For me, it’s just [a matter of] focus on my own job and that’s it. It’s the same question every time but it doesn’t matter. If he’s first, if he’s last, I’ll do the best I can.”
As a follow-up, the reporter asked how confident Norris was feeling in his car. He replied: “I mean tomorrow is a completely different day so we’ll see. We definitely made some good steps forward so good enough. I’m happy with today, we’ll see in the sprint tomorrow.”
Verstappen had his own frustrations. His RB20 struggled on the bumpy Interlagos tarmac. “As soon as we went into qualifying, it looked like we were definitely off, so the car was a bit difficult on the bumps,” he said.
“They did the resurfacing but I think they actually made it worse to drive. It’s extremely bumpy everywhere, so that’s not good for our car. In all the bumpy areas the car is jumping around a lot and it’s costing me quite a bit of time, unfortunately.
“For tomorrow I don’t know. Normally, when you are already quite a bit off over one lap, I don’t think we are particularly the strongest in the race, so we’ll have to see how that goes tomorrow in the sprint. I also know that there is maybe some weather around that can come, but maybe not for the sprint. We’ll have a look.”
